`Half-seven at M'Auley's be it!'
There was a short silence. Mr Kernan waited to see whether he would be taken into his friends' confidence. Then he asked:
`What's in the wind?'
`O, it's nothing,' said Mr Cunningham. `It's only a little matter that we're arranging about for Thursday.'
`The opera, is it?' said Mr Kernan.
`No, no,' said Mr Cunningham in an evasive tone, `it's just a little... spiritual matter.'
`O,' said Mr Kernan.
There was silence again. Then Mr Power said, point-blank:
`To tell you the truth, Tom, we're going to make a retreat.'
`Yes, that's it,' said Mr Cunningham, `Jack and I and M'Coy here — we're all going to wash the pot.'
He uttered the metaphor with a certain homely energy and, encouraged by his own voice, proceeded:
`You see, we may as well all admit we're a nice collection of scoundrels, one and all. I say, one and all,' he added with gruff charity and turning to Mr Power. `Own up now!'
`I own up,' said Mr Power.
`And I own up,' said Mr M'Coy.
`So we're going to wash the pot together,' said Mr Cunningham.
A thought seemed to strike him. He turned suddenly to the invalid and said:
`D'ye know what, Tom, has just occurred to me? You might join in and we'd have a four-handed reel.'
`Good idea,' said Mr Power. `The four of us together.'
Mr Kernan was silent. The proposal conveyed very little meaning to his mind, but, understanding that some spiritual agencies were about to concern themselves on his behalf, he thought he owed it to his dignity to show a stiff neck. He took no part in the conversation for a long while, but listened, with an air of calm enmity, while his friends discussed the Jesuits.
`I haven't such a bad opinion of the Jesuits,' he said, intervening at length. `They're an educated order. I believe they mean well, too.'
`They're the grandest order in the Church, Tom,' said Mr Cunningham, with enthusiasm. `The General of the Jesuits stands next to the Pope.'
`There's no mistake about it,' said Mr M'Coy, `if you want a thing well done and no flies about, you go to a Jesuit. They're the boyos have influence. I `Il tell you a case in point... '
`The Jesuits are a fine body of men,' said Mr Power.
`It's a curious thing,' said Mr Cunningham, `about the Jesuit Order. Every other order of the Church had to be reformed at some time or other, but the Jesuit Order was never once reformed. It never fell away.'
`Is that so?' asked Mr M'Coy.
`That's a fact,' said Mr Cunningham. `That's history.'
`Look at their church, too,' said Mr Power. `Look at the congregation they have.'
`The Jesuits cater for the upper classes,' said Mr M'Coy.
`Of course,' said Mr Power.
`Yes,' said Mr Kernan. `That's why I have a feeling for them. It's some of those secular priests, ignorant, bumptious—'
`They're all good men,' said Mr Cunningham, `each in his own way. The Irish priesthood is honoured all the world over.'
`O yes,' said Mr Power.
`Not like some of the other priesthoods on the Continent, said Mr M`Coy, `unworthy of the name. '
`Perhaps you're right,' said Mr Kernan, relenting.
`Of course I'm right,' said Mr Cunningham. `I haven't been in the world all this time and seen most sides of it without being a judge of character.'
The gentlemen drank again, one following another's example. Mr Kernan seemed to be weighing something in his mind. He was impressed. He had a high opinion of Mr Cunningham as a judge of character and as a reader of faces. He asked for particulars.
`O, it's just a retreat, you know,' said Mr Cunningham. `Father Purdon is giving it. It's for business men, you know.'
`He won't be too hard on us, Tom,' said Mr Power persuasively.
`Father Purdon? Father Purdon?' said the invalid.
`O, you must know him, Tom,' said Mr Cunningham, stoutly. `Fine, jolly fellow! He's a man of the world like ourselves.'
`Ah... yes. I think I know him. Rather red face; tall.'
`That's the man.'
`And tell me, Martin... Is he a good preacher?'
`Munno... It's not exactly a sermon, you know. It's just a kind of a friendly talk, you know, in a common-sense way.'
Mr Kernan deliberated. Mr M'Coy said:
`Father Tom Burke, that was the boy!'
`O, Father Tom Burke,' said Mr Cunningham, `that was a born orator. Did you ever hear him, Tom?'
`Did I ever hear him!' said the invalid, nettled. `Rather! I heard him... '
`And yet they say he wasn't much of a theologian,' said Mr Cunningham.
`Is that so?' said Mr M'Coy.
`O, of course, nothing wrong, you know. Only sometimes, they say, he didn't preach what was quite orthodox.'
`Ah!... he was a splendid man,' said Mr M'Coy.
`I heard him once,' Mr Kernan continued. `I forget the subject of his discourse now. Crofton and I were in the back of the... pit, you know... the—'
`The body,' said Mr Cunningham.
`Yes, in the back near the door. I forgot now what... O yes, it was on the Pope, the late Pope. I remember it well. Upon my word it was magnificent, the style of the oratory. And his voice! God! hadn't he a voice! The Prisoner of the Vatican, he called him. I remember Crofton saying to me when we came out—'
`But he's an Orangeman, Crofton, isn't he?' said Mr Power.
`'Course he is,' said Mr Kernan, `and a damned decent Orangeman, too. We went into Butler's in Moore Street faith, I was genuinely moved, tell you the God's truth — and I remember well his very words. Kernan, he said, we worship at different altars, he said, but our belief is the same. Struck me as very well put.'
`There's a good deal in that,' said Mr Power. `There used always be crowds of Protestants in the chapel where Father Tom was preaching.'
`There's not much difference between us,' said Mr M'Coy. `We both believe in—'
He hesitated for a moment.
`... in the Redeemer. Only they don't believe in the Pope and in the mother of God.'
`But, of course,' said Mr Cunningham quietly and effectively, `our religion is the religion, the old, original faith.'
`Not a doubt of it,' said Mr Kernan warmly.
Mrs Kernan came to the door of the bedroom and announced:
`Here's a visitor for you!'
`Who is it?'
`Mr Fogarty.'
`O, come in! come in!'
A pale, oval face came forward into the light. The arch of its fair trailing moustache was repeated in the fair eyebrows looped above pleasantly astonished eyes. Mr Fogarty was a modest grocer. He had failed in business in a licensed house in the city because his financial condition had constrained him to tie himself to second-class distillers and brewers. He had opened a small shop on Glasnevin Road where, he flattered himself, his manners would ingratiate him with the housewives of the district. He bore himself with a certain grace, complimented little children and spoke with a neat enunciation. He was not without culture.
Mr Fogarty brought a gift with him, a half-pint of special whisky. He inquired politely for Mr Kernan, placed his gift on the table and sat down with the company on equal terms. Mr Kernan appreciated the gift all the more since he was aware that there was a small account for groceries unsettled between him and Mr Fogarty. He said:
`I wouldn't doubt you, old man. Open that, Jack, will you?'
Mr Power again officiated. Glasses were rinsed and five small measures of whisky were poured out. This new influence enlivened the conversation. Mr Fogarty, sitting on a small area of the chair, was specially interested.
`Pope Leo XIII,' said Mr Cunningham, `was one of the lights of the age. His great idea, you know, was the union of the Latin and Greek Churches. That was the aim of his life.'
`I often heard he was one of the most intellectual men in Europe,' said Mr Power. `I mean, apart from his being Pope.'
`So he was,' said Mr Cunningham, `if not the most so. His motto, you know, as Pope, was Lux upon Lux — Light upon Light.'
`No, no,' said Mr Fogarty eagerly. `I think you're wrong there. It was Lux in Tenebris, I think — Light in Darkness.'
`O yes,' said Mr M'Coy, `Tenebrae.'
`Allow me,' said Mr Cunningham positively, `it was Lux upon Lux. And Pius IX his predecessor's motto was Crux upon Crux — that is, Cross upon Cross — to show the difference between their two pontificates.'
The inference was allowed. Mr Cunningham continued.
`Pope Leo, you know, was a great scholar and a poet.'
`He had a strong face,' said Mr Kernan.
`Yes,' said Mr Cunningham. `He wrote Latin poetry.'
`Is that so?' said Mr Fogarty.
Mr M'Coy tasted his whisky contentedly and shook his head with a double intention, saying:
`That's no joke, I can tell you.'
`We didn't learn that, Tom,' said Mr Power, following Mr M'Coy's example, `when we went to the penny-a-week school.'
`There was many a good man went to the penny-a-week school with a sod of turf under his oxter,' said Mr Kernan sententiously. `The old system was the best: plain honest education. None of your modern trumpery... '
`Quite right,' said Mr Power.
`No superfluities,' said Mr Fogarty.
He enunciated the word and then drank gravely.
`I remember reading,' said Mr Cunningham, `that one of Pope Leo's poems was on the invention of the photograph in Latin, of course.'
`On the photograph!' exclaimed Mr Kernan.
`Yes,' said Mr Cunningham.
He also drank from his glass.
`Well, you know,' said Mr M'Coy, `isn't the photograph wonderful when you come to think of it?'
`O, of course,' said Mr Power, `great minds can see things.'
`As the poet says: Great minds are very near to madness,' said Mr Fogarty.
Mr Kernan seemed to be troubled in mind. He made an effort to recall the Protestant theology on some thorny points and in the end addressed Mr Cunningham.
`Tell me, Martin,' he said. `Weren't some of the Popes — of course, not our present man, or his predecessor, but some of the old Popes — not exactly... you know... up to the knocker?'
There was a silence. Mr Cunningham said:
`O, of course, there were some bad lots... But the astonishing thing is this. Not one of them, not the biggest drunkard, not the most... out-and-out ruffian, not one of them ever preached ex cathedra a word of false doctrine. Now isn't that an astonishing thing?'
`That is,' said Mr Kernan.
`Yes, because when the Pope speaks ex cathedra,' Mr Fogarty explained, `he is infallible.'